San Sebastián has set Le Faux Soir, a WWII feature directed by Belgian filmmaker Michaël R. Roskam, as the closing film of this year’s festival, which is set to run from September 18 to 26.
Le Faux Soir will arrive at San Sebastian following its screening at TIFF.
The film is based on the book Le “faux” Soir, 9 novembre 1943, by Marie Istas. The story is set in 1943, when, having occupied Belgium, the nazis turn the national newspaper Le Soir into their propaganda tool. The official synopsis continues: “To raise the spirits of the Belgian people, a group of resistance fighters come up with a wild idea: to print a fake edition of the newspaper mocking the occupier in what some historians consider to be the first-ever media hack.”
The film’s cast features Arieh Worthalter, Mélanie Thierry, Karim Leklou, Mara Taquin, Bouli Lanners, Julien Frison and François Damiens.
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Roskam has a personal connection with the subject matter. Before becoming a film director, he worked as a journalist for the Flemish newspaper De Morgen. His film credits include the shorts Carlo (2004) and The One Thing to Do (2005). He made his feature film debut with Bullhead (2011), which, following its premiere in the Panorama section of the Berlin Festival, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best International Film.
Roskam was in the San Sebastián Festival Official Selection in 2014 with The Drop, starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace and James Gandolfini. The film won the Jury Prize for Best Screenplay. His 2017 feature Racer and the Jailbird (2017) screened in Venice out of competition and was selected to represent Belgium at the Academy Awards. In 2021, he directed the first three episodes of the miniseries Black Bird, starring Taron Egerton.